The Writer And The Runaway
by Underwater Rose
Summary: Bored writer can't write his own novel, and he is sick of writing only so his books will sell, but which don't tell anything about himself, so in one no particular day, he stumbles across a runaway young brat in the middle of the night and also in an empty park. Well, what now? SasuNaru


AN1: This story belonged to someone else but wait! Don't leave yet, this story has been abandoned by the said writer and I decided to save it, 13 chapters are already written but I make many modifications, make it my own way and also correct the mistakes so, I might even change where the plot is going, which I will probably because that's why the writer was stuck. Don't get me wrong, I am not doing it without approval! I really like it, hope you'll do too.

And about 'Underwater', I am currently working on it, so this is it just so you won't forget about me. Is really different but still all me so, thank you very much for reading.

On with the chapter:

When I was younger, someone told me that as long as you have love, you will still have hope.

At that time, it meant nothing to me. I was young and for me, young means that I am not in this world yet, 'cause I never saw or felt pain, therefore, for me, nothing was real enough to deserve my attention, my feelings or just the slightest concern.

Or maybe because I was so young, nothing felt real. At least not for me.

In conclusion, I was so young I was a man sleeping while life passed him by. So I didn't even notice that all the people around me were fighting because they were awake, and because, that maybe, even if younger than me, they saw life for what it was, not a fantasy, not a story or a poem, but just plain and cruel reality.

**The Runaway**

Chapter 1: Angel on the floor

They say that if you have talent at painting, at carving, at singing or at just anything that is in the department of art, they say that you feel everything differently than the others who obviously, have no talent whatsoever.

You feel everything deeper than the rest, with another significance than the ones with no talent, who see nothing more when they look at the simplest things, and more than that, you share your pain, love, loneliness or even happiness in paintings, through your sculptures, your songs and with the talent that I own, I've put all of my feelings in what I'm writing.

I have always wanted to write a book, my book, and many people will read it and they will feel my anger, my loneliness, my pain, my happiness, my longing, my hunger, and above them all, they will feel my love.

But, I never really did it; I've never finished a whole book which I could call my own, somebody always messed it up so it can sell, and those which were stories entirely my own… well, I never had the guts to give it to someone to read it, not even to an acquaintance, hell, not even to a stranger.

All of my stories have been thrown to the garbage by nobody else but me, the one who wrote them. The already stuffed garbage from my apartment in which I live all alone, no surprise there. In my apartment in which you can hear the water dropping from the faucet and then falling on the hard fabric of the empty sink, most of the times filled with empty cups of coffee.

After some time of frustration and white sheets, or more like…some years, I gave up on the idea of writing a story or a novel that I could be proud of, and I decided to put the idea on hold, to let the story itself to grow its roots inside of me and when the time will come, to harvest it.

'I will write the story and then I will share it with the whole wide world.' Or so I thought every day. If only it would've been that simple.

Like any writer out there, I am dreaming at a story that it's so wonderful, so beautiful and so outstanding, marvelous and so exciting, that no matter who will read it, they will absolutely fall in love with it. But that will also be all that I am outside and inside. Almost impossible if you think about it.

But until then, I decided to put all of my feelings in poems.

I've thought that I always had words in me which cannot be written in stories, and that I can write them; paint them and carve them in the beautiful art of poetry.

But as soon as I've started, it happened that all of my beautiful words were suddenly drowned by my too strong feelings that had easily taken the whole control of me, and of my poems.

At first, I wrote about angels, but it had nothing to do with religion or nothing to do with more than my simple, my ridiculous and my rigid feelings, and no poetry.

The only real and content structure my feelings could ever give was always just the last stanza:

"If this isn't true, then I will just die for my heart to feel free

And this time, I have no escape,

I can't work hard if I see myself crying every single day,

And I know this can't be a lie, when I want to escape,

Is this how it's supposed to be?

To want to die more than you want to live?"

Even if many of my poems had something more than simple words or maybe, something beautiful in them, maybe just the idea but the way I put it made it somehow unreachable… they still weren't enough poetic for me, and some of them didn't had really anything poetic in them, not to mention, no rhyme, and even if I know that there are poems without rhyme, I never liked those poems; so why my own poems have not even one stanza that rhymes?

They are like songs about feelings, but I cannot sing, so they are not even songs, not even stories, and not even poems.

My loneliness slowly suffocates me, in its silence and darkness as the wind that always comes from the open window of my apartment, before my covered with sheets desk, that can take me away even more easily with its mystery, and to let me fly with him. But only for a second.

Because after that very second, I am still a prisoner of my own gift from God, prisoner in my own body and prisoner with my incapability to do something with my meaningless life.

I always wanted to be a writer, to write at least a book, but I once been a writer that indeed, writes. A writer that doesn't even likes what he writes but still writes! And in the end thinks that he can do better, but that will happen, maybe …next time.

'But next time never came.'

As always, if not trying to escape the madness that tried to seduce me in my own apartment, I got out of my lovely cage and I even closed the door with the key, so that the bad luck can remain stuck inside of it. But as soon as I got out of my apartment, I started walking with my left foot, therefore forgetting to start it with my right foot for luck.

'Seems the bad luck didn't get stuck at all, but followed me.'

As always, I wanted to walk through the park alone, and to think and to see, that maybe, the inspiration will suddenly hit my mind, or maybe, I used this excuse to make my routine walk to just clear my head, to hear sounds, to feel the wind all around me and not just in front of me as it does in my apartment but when the wind comes from an open window.

Hoping against hope that maybe the lake from the park will make a smell that I could taste with my nose, maybe the moon will be on the sky and it will let me borrow some inspiration as she borrows warmth from the sun and maybe, my poem or my story will come, with the wind, with the smell and with the noise of some other humans that would walk with me, right beside me.

But as always, I came in the park way too late, because as always, it's already night.

And so, there is almost no one in this whole park, just empty banks and a lake without any bird or fish, a quiet atmosphere. A calm breeze often wakes me up from my thoughts but after a while, I didn't felt anything, nor the wind, nor the incredibly almost inexistent smell from the lake, and not even the full moon that has entertained me enough to look at it often, and then at the road, again and again.

It all begun to be a picture that I cannot paint. A man that walks in the park at night, where the wind is not nor too harsh nor too calm, while the park is too empty, the lake smells almost the same as the ground, and the words, still unwritten and it all seems to me, it is beyond description.

It is too much, this unchangeable routine wants to eat me endlessly and who am I to say no? And with what change could I deny its structure that seems to be immune to my constant desire to burn it? As a painting that can't be redone, a painting that has been exposed to millions of people that can't forget how it looked like when they spotted it for the first time, the first eyes that have seen, the millions of eyes that have made photos of my own painting and then sadly, their own brain connected with those very eyes, and made a mental picture that can't be erased, forever.

Unchangeable as this, is my routine that could never be changed no matter how much I wish I could remake the painting, to even erase it if it's possible, to just explain to them that the way the painting is now, it's not right, not perfect, and not even close to comfort.

At least not for me, but for them, for people that don't even know me, for people that don't care about me, why would they let me change or erase my own painting when they would simply just let it as it is right now? With the simple reasoning which is: It doesn't bother me, it doesn't concern me so why change?

'Therefore, you eat what you put on the table; you can't change the food, for you're out of groceries and money. And guests…Stop rambling you idiot.' I thought to myself yet again.

Because they don't need my painting, to feel it, to live it, and some of them, often watch it, see how a man walks beside them without knowing anything about the man itself.

And who am I to say that they should care? When I walk beside so many people with so many untold stories, with such fake smiles on so many sculpted faces that I don't know, because they are masks just like my own, and I don't care, and I don't recognize them because we all hide behind them. Truth be told, you can't tell how wonderful or how terrible their life is just by looking in their eyes. You can tell they are sad or happy, but that's pretty much it.

'The eyes are the reflections of the soul. But is seems they don't reflect enough.'

'But who am I to judge them?'

I thought too much, and then a sigh escaped my lips as I looked just in front of me, at the unchangeable and untouchable view. I look at the small pavement of the park and at the green tress, not too high but not too small either, but while they are dancing a little with the kind breeze of the quiet wind while the noisy ones are the leaves indeed, I look at my right, at the road in front of me and then…

"Hello old man."

I've quickly looked at my left, at a bank that is not empty but changed, with a boy sitting on it, in a quite rude posture, as if sleeping there but not looking like a beggar either.

"Hn." Was my response.

Though I should walk away already, but I do not know why I remained at the right of this very bank while looking at a young boy with a blue cap on his head, while rebel bright blond hairs threaten to get outside of it, some of them already escaped the captivity of the cap.

Also, I couldn't help but notice without even intending…the pair of bright blue eyes, outstanding blue eyes; deeper than the ocean itself, and that seem to expand in my vision like the sky itself.

He is young, of course, younger than me for sure. And his skin is not even white and not even too tanned either, neat and clean, flawless skin, it makes the clothes jealous with that caramel tint.

A dark yellow jacket and a simple orange T-shirt under it, with blue pants that seem to be in trend with the young trouble makers of these democratic years, free generations, jeans that are ripped because he fell straight in his nose or that are just designed to look as if he just fought with a cat or dog, probably with both.

Sneakers as always, grey ones with missing lacings. And I wonder if he lost them or removed them.

While staring at him, I could tell that he stares at me too, but what has caught my glance is the undeniable smoke that comes from his cigarette which he holds dearly in his right hand between his fingers, slowly enjoying it while looking at me.

The smoke made me to stop in that place after all, but without reason, I refused to look at my left and I continued to look just in front of me. And now, we both refuse to look at any other thing, but ourselves.

And I surprised him, even if that was my initial intention. When I quickly took the cigarette from his hand and I've throw it close to my feet and then squashed it with my weight while his hand still lingered in the air, but his eyes are not on the crushed cigarette but on my eyes, deep in my eyes.

"Why did you do that, old man?"

He said, almost laughing at a sentence that is not a joke, but a question, a laugh so small that it seemed nervous but he seems more than relaxed and comfortable.

I sat myself beside him, at his right; I sat normally on the dark brown bank while he still stays on it as if it is a comfortable couch and I looked forward while I know that he still stares at me, while he waits for his answer.

"'Cause is not good to your health."

I said and he moved, I felt him but I dared not to look at him while I've realized that he has sat himself normally on the bank too, at my left, but he doesn't look in front of him, like me, but instead, he continues to rudely analyze every part of me.

"So, you're a cop or something?"

He asked me, but he doesn't seem frightened to ask this, and for a moment, I wanted to say yes, just to see if he would run like hell broke free from me right now, well, if my answer would be indeed affirmative.

"Do I look like a cop to you?"

Childish, if I could only name him in any other way. As he rested one leg over the other one that already was on the bank, and he kept them there with his two hands over his ankles while he just balanced his body, back and forward, while he still talks to me.

"Well, I don't know, you walk through the park at midnight so maybe you do some shitty night tour."

"Wrong."

I somehow felt like he didn't mean those words but said them just as if to continue our conversation. The same thing I'm doing after all, because I could give all of his answers and our conversation would've been over already, but no. We continue to ask, to taunt, and to just ramble so it won't be just us and the silence, us and the wind, us and the empty park.

After I said just a single word and he has begun to make a sound which I cannot tell what it is, he stopped balancing and just stared at me with an expression that says that he is disturbed by something.

'Maybe he just thinks of what to say.'

I thought while I started searching in my dark blue jeans, in my back pockets for my black cigarette package.

I've pulled it out and took one of them and let rest it between my lips, while I lit it with the lighter.

The smoke from my cigarette dirtied the air of the night immediately while he begun to retort, quite irritated:

"You tell me not to smoke, but you can?"

I knew he will wait for my answer so I inhaled the poison from my cigarette to my lungs again, while the evidences of that were left in the air and only then, I've turned my head to look at him while I knew he still looks at me and that he won't look somewhere else.

I bowed my head a little closer to him just so I could have every bit of his attention of what I'm about to say, underlining my words, or just...messing with him.

"You're underage, aren't you?"

I asked but he didn't seem to be surprised by my question at all, while he smiled and talked to me while he bowed his head closer to me too, copying my earlier move.

"Sure you're not a cop?"

He asked but none of us moved so I just looked forward as I took yet another taste from my cigarette again and then, I let it to be blown away by the small breeze that has passed and finished with my smoke in the same time.

So my irises found him again, in the same position, and I found myself continuing our pointless conversation once again.

"And what if I am a cop?"

I asked him and a smirk has escaped my lips, but not a smile while he closed his eyes and then he opened them again.

He got up from the bank, made a step or two forward, and then he came back to the bank, standing on his tiptoes on the ground with bowed knees and in the same time, looking up at me, therefore, I am now looking down at him.

"I don't think you are a cop, old man."

I inhaled again.

"And what do you think I am, minor boy?"

He made a sound that sounded like 'hmm' and put his right hand to his chin as if he thinks about it really hard and then he reunited it with his left hand that stays comfortable on his knees.

He stopped the sound and regained his attention at me, closer, again and then he took my cigarette that it's almost finished and he smoked what was left from it.

I stared at him, I didn't move at all though his exhaled smoke has attacked my face, but I didn't even made a disturbed sound, but unexpected, he himself with the same hand has spread it away from my face, and us, and only then, his voice once again reached my ears.

"Perhaps, a lonely man looking for some company."

He said and then he smiled at me, while I cannot believe what my ears have heard.

No. I am not someone that looks for simple company; I look for silence, feelings, and inspiration.

'But silence has my apartment too. Plenty of silence…'

I thought and then a sigh has escaped my lips for the tenth time that very day.

I closed my eyes and then I spoke to him while he still stared at me even more attentive than before.

"Just, who or what are you?"

I asked him and he smiled right away, while I couldn't tell if he was amused or if he has been waiting for this question all along, as if there was some invisible script hidden and that I couldn't read until now, when I accidentally said the right words.

"You tell me."

'An underage boy who stays in the park all alone to smoke?'

I thought, but then thought twice, finally letting all of it sink in and realizing that he stays on this bank like it's his own bed, which he seems to have lost long ago.

"A runaway?"

I asked him and his eyes suddenly grew colder and filled with sorrow.

It was like seeing the ocean or the sky, in the middle of a harsh fall or winter.

He stood up and looked at the lake while he made no move that he will look at me even again, but he spoke when I was ready to say something that would've been probably out of topic, of course, since the dead silence made itself known for the first time in our humble conversation.

"And if I would tell you that I am a runaway. What answer would you give me?"

I almost felt like he stopped himself from suggesting or just saying other answers, answers that he already has in mind, answers that have been told to him so many times before, so I waited, until he turned around to look at me again, with bright blue eyes and with the full moon behind him, engraved in the quiet lake that couldn't match the beauty of his eyes, two marbles that almost invited me to watch them change in millions of variations of blue within seconds, if that was even possible...maybe the colors, the lights, the shadows that were all around were to blame, even so, his emotions just hit you when you looked in his eyes, it was like he didn't wear any mask.

'It feels like you can grow tired of the moon but not of his eyes.'

"What answer would you like?"

I asked and I could say that he was not satisfied with my answer. He shifted from right to left, but still stood in the same place with his legs, and I could tell how nervous he is just because he didn't get a straight answer.

"I would… like you to tell me that…"

He said word by word, not a sentence, not sure of what to say, nervous, afraid or maybe just confused of what will come his way. The storm or the blazing sun, these are his only existing options, breathing choices that could be decided just by one plain answer. Sadly, the token is owned by somebody else, and that somebody is not him.

"Tell me your name."

I said after I've realized that he won't say any word after some seconds of pure silence.

I looked up at him and he looked down at me while he was a bit surprised by my words.

"Naruto. My name is Naruto."

He said and in that moment, I stood up and I looked him in the eye.

"Well, Naruto, would you like me to tell you to join me to an empty apartment, with little to no food, in which the temperature it's too hot in summer and too cold in winter, with me, a stranger?"

I asked while his smile was so big and so sad that I could not beat an eyelash until he spoke again.

"Yes, I would like this answer very much."

I could tell that no matter the fact that I could be a serial killer and my apartment to have the most despicable conditions; it would be much more pleasant than to sleep on a bank in the park, all alone.

After all, I knew those feelings so well, too well.

So I sat down on the bank once again, on my spot, and opened my cigarette package and I lit one cigarette, then put everything back so I can enjoy the taste, the smoke is left in the air and then my words have come with the breeze of the early fall in that day.

"Then this is your answer."

He is confused, even more than confused, the possibility that I really want to take him with me, he cannot tell if I'm serious or not. He cannot tell if he is right when he thinks that he has just received an affirmative answer. So, our game with our own words has come to an end when he asked me the final question, for he's boiling in curiosity or maybe, in doubt:

"You mean that I can go with you, you mean that I live with you now, and that…"

He said rather quickly, and all that I did was to nod my head in affirmation, up and down, while the air got dirtier.

When he realized what was happening, he immediately ran towards me, jumped and embraced me and after some seconds of silence, he got up and talked again:

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable, uh, I …don't know…"

Happy, that is the feeling that he feels in this moment, he emanates just happiness alone.

Even the fear that his expectations could be destroyed didn't dare to touch his happiness.

So, all I did was to enjoy my cigarette, while he manifested his nervousness and happiness right in front of my very eyes.

"But…"

He suddenly whispered and just then, I almost finished my cigarette while he regained his voice once again.

"You didn't tell me what's your name yet…"

He suggested, not yet a question and not yet a finished sentence and I could tell that he tried to resist the urge to say old man again, only to end up staring at me, quite conflicted but patiently waiting. While I threw the cigarette to my feet while I stood up and crushed it in the same time under my shoe, and only then, I told him what he wanted to know.

"Sasuke, Sasuke Uchiha."

To be continued…

AN2: So, what do you guys say? Continue, not continue it? Does it have any potential? Wish you all the best and for those who read the original story, well, do you this is improved, or worse? Well, thank you all for reading anyway.

Wish you all the best.


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